


Unlocked

by SloanGreyMercyDeath



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Internalized Homophobia, but also Hope, it’s a nice ending, this one is about JJ
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-12
Updated: 2021-01-12
Packaged: 2021-03-16 08:09:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28703427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SloanGreyMercyDeath/pseuds/SloanGreyMercyDeath
Summary: JJ has a secret. A bad one. Well, it feels like a bad one, even on days when it doesn’t come up and she can almost forget. It’s a dangerous one.
Relationships: Jennifer "JJ" Jareau/Emily Prentiss
Comments: 10
Kudos: 148





	Unlocked

JJ has a secret. A bad one. Well, it feels like a bad one, even on days when it doesn’t come up and she can almost forget. It’s a dangerous one.

Jennifer Jareau has a steady job, good friends, and a nice apartment. She wears clothing that fits her well and makes her look approachable, but not distracting. She wears short heels (so men don’t feel insecure), subtle make-up (so no one ever thinks she’s tired), and a polite smile (so her rage never shows). Her career calls for tame femininity, her friends are expert profilers, and her home is bare because she’s never home.

In truth, she has a lot of secrets. She keeps her anger a secret, her muscles a secret, her smoking habit a secret. These secrets are mostly harmless. She may get a patronizing smile when she accidentally snaps at a reporter. She may get a look of surprise when she restrains a grieving widow. She may get a snort of derision when she’s caught putting out a cigarette behind a black SUV. These are nothing compared to her dangerous secret.

Most days, her secret isn’t an issue. She thinks of Penelope like a sister, so there’s no harm there. The others in the bullpen are not her type. When they go out on cases, she’s too busy with work and gore and tragedy to notice anything else.

It’s not a problem at all. She’s gone years and years without succumbing to herself, and she’s sure that she can continue this way forever. Then, Emily Prentiss joins their unit and JJ’s secret pricks at the back of her eyes like so many tears.

Jennifer Jareau is 28. She’s an adult who can control herself. Her base desires can’t force her to do anything she doesn’t want to do and she doesn’t want to do  _ this. _

She doesn’t want to lock herself in her office, drop to the floor, and sob. She doesn’t want to face the rest of however long until Agent Prentiss leaves the team. She doesn’t want to be gay.

There is supposed to be a plan for her. She’s supposed to have a career, marry a nice man, have children, retire with a golden retriever and a house and spoil her grandchildren. She is  _ not  _ supposed to fall in love with a woman who isn’t  _ broken  _ like she is, and cry as she thinks about sharing perfume and matching wedding dresses and a house in the country with a black lab and  _ grandchildren. _

__ JJ wants her life plan. She wants the job and she wants the house and she wants a family. The problem, her dangerous secret, is that she doesn’t just want to be a wife. She wants to  _ have  _ a wife, too. Isn’t that the worst thing in the world?

JJ doesn’t know how to pick herself up off the floor and move on with her day. Her secret, the one that has barely mattered at all for so long, is suddenly a weight that’s trying to drown her. All the pieces of tape she’s used to fix herself are gone and she’s just a pile of smashed pieces on the floor. There’s no way to put her back into a person again.

Fortunately for her, a case comes in. Then another. Then another. She can bury herself in paperwork and profiling, unsubs and unconscionable evil, beer and best friends and a boyfriend in another state that she keeps forgetting to visit.

She should have visited him more. Maybe, if she’d held a solid person in her touch-starved hands, felt a man inside her, proved to herself that a good life was possible even if she had to work for it, then this wouldn’t have happened. If she’s just tried  _ harder,  _ she wouldn’t have ended up here.

‘Here’ is in Emily’s embrace. It’s a worn couch in JJ’s bare apartment. It’s a hot tongue pressed to her neck that jumpstarts her heart like a car that hasn’t been cared for in years. It’s hell and it’s heaven and it’s real.

JJ tries to remember how they got here. She tries to remember what came before wine and movies and Penelope needing to leave. It’s something like a girls’ night at a bar that migrates to her place that lands them on the couch. The door barely closes behind Penelope when Emily’s hands are on her.

Emily’s hands are like fire and brimstone, damning JJ to a life of torment. Because how is she supposed to tuck all of this away again? How can JJ know what Emily’s too hot, too eager, hands feel like under her blouse, and then go back to work as if nothing has changed?

Maybe nothing has. Maybe JJ is finally realizing that it’s always been like this. Maybe she’s learning that she can’t tape it together forever, but what is she supposed to do with pieces that are too sharp to handle? A sob bursts from her as her pieces fall from her hands.

“JJ?” Emily’s voice shatters her further. “Oh my god. I’m so sorry. I totally misread the situation.”

Then, Emily’s hands are gone and JJ gasps for air. It tastes like sulfur as she swallows, shivering with cold now that Emily is across the couch. There’s so much distance between them and JJ doesn’t know why.

“I’m such an idiot,” Emily mumbles, pushing her hair from her face. “It was just wishful thinking.” She blinks her dark eyes like blackholes that suck JJ in to their inky depths. “I’m so sorry. I should have asked first. I just… I guess I can admit that I’ve kind of had a thing for you for a while.”

“Emily,” JJ sobs, spiralling, “help.”

She falls off the couch, hands clutching her head, trying to drown out the screams of her family, the Bureau, her grandchildren. It’s too much to handle. She  _ wants _ to kiss Emily. She  _ wants  _ to be happy. She  _ wants  _ to be gay. She needs someone to tell her that everything is alright.

“Jennifer?” Emily asks urgently, appearing in front of her like a guardian angel. “Hey, breathe. You have to breathe. Come on, follow my breath.”

She breathes deeply and evenly and JJ tries to latch on. She sucks in air and puffs it out, doing her best just like she always has. It’s hard to breathe when she wants to die, but, when she can finally look at Emily again, the other woman looks so concerned and worried that JJ knows she has to live. This is her chance - her only chance - to live and she has to take it.

“I’m gay,” JJ shouts, startling Emily. “I’m a lesbian.” Her eyes widen as she hears what she’s said. Her jumpstarted heart is racing along a new course and she’s hurtling toward something new. “I’ve never said that before.”

Emily’s eyes widen with sudden understanding. “JJ…”

“I haven’t-“ She shakes her head. “I couldn’t!”

“I know,” Emily sighs, taking JJ in her arms and pulling her close. “I know. It’s okay.”

“I’m sorry,” JJ is saying, sobbing again. She’s clutching Emily’s shirt and crying against her shoulder. “I’m so sorry.”

Emily just presses her cheek to the top of JJ’s head and rocks her slowly. “I didn’t know, but I know now. We’ll take it slow, ok?”

“Ok,” JJ replies through her tears. A dam has broken, just like her, and everything she’s ever held back is flooding outwards through her cracks. “Will you stay? Tonight? I can’t…”

“Of course.”

Of course. JJ lets Emily comfort her, holding her and rocking her and pressing soft kisses to her forehead. Of course, Emily will stay. JJ wonders if Emily isn’t from hell after all, but from heaven. She thinks this beautiful woman might have been a test for her.

JJ hopes she passed, but Emily is helping her to her feet and guiding her into the bathroom, and she knows that it doesn’t matter either way. She has a steady career, good friends, and a nice apartment. She has her rage under control, enough strength to carry her through, and an occasional cigarette can’t hurt. Especially because Emily sneaks them with her.

JJ sits on the bathroom counter while Emily gently washes her face with a cool, damp cloth. It feels like healing. JJ isn’t sure if it’s  _ Emily  _ herself that made her break, or just the love of a woman, but it’s Emily who’s touching her with such tenderness and it’s Emily’s who’s brow is furrowed with concentration as she gently wipes JJ’s make-up away.

JJ thinks that best friends make the best lovers, and she has the best best friend in the world. Emily sees something in her beyond the nice clothing and the polite smile. Emily saw that she is gay when it was her tightly guarded secret. 

Maybe JJ doesn’t need to put herself together as long as she has someone who sees her broken pieces as a mosaic instead of a tragedy. JJ is art all on her own. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and JJ has waited 28 years for someone to behold her like this.

When she’s clean, and no longer crying, JJ reaches up and cups Emily’s cheeks. They’re warm and soft, like Emily’s eyes and her heart. JJ loves the feel of them already.

She’s terrified and shell shocked and not sure if she’s allowed to do this, but she draws Emily toward her, blinks at the woman who’s unlocked her safe, and tilts her head up for a kiss. Emily hesitates. She cares about JJ and she isn’t going to push again.

“I know that I need time,” JJ tells her with an open face and sincerity in her voice, “but I also know that I’d like to kiss you right now. I like you a lot, and I’m sorry for crying and pulling away, but if you’ll give me another chance-“

Emily kisses her. She takes JJ in her arms and holds her tightly, protecting her from the world around them. If JJ is a princess who’s been locked away all this time, then Emily is the knight whose love is a key. JJ melts into her arms and her mouth and her heart.

“Stop apologizing,” Emily says when they’ve parted. “I understand. I already like you and I’ve only scratched the surface. I promise I’ll stick around to see the rest.”

And that’s when JJ knows. She knows that not all secrets are meant to be kept, and some are explicitly meant to be shared. JJ doesn’t know what the rest of her is. So long she’s only been a fence around a home, but now she’s allowed inside and she’s going to learn who lives there. They may have hidden things away and burnt letters rather than let people read them, but at least she’s inside now and she’s not there alone.


End file.
